Freedom Charters

The Declaration announced to the world on July 4, 1776, that thirteen British colonies in North America were leaving Great Britain to form a separate nation, called the United States of America.

The Constitution, drafted in 1787 after a hard-won victory in the Revolutionary War, contains a practical scheme of government to promote the welfare of its citizens.

The Bill of Rights, added to the Constitution in 1791 as the first ten amendments, explicitly protected freedom of speech, of the press, of religion, and of assembly, among many other rights.

Archives Catalog

The National Archives contains many records of interest to family historians: applications for enrollment in Native American tribes; fugitive slave cases; immigrant ship passenger lists; land records; and others.

National Archives

National Archives

The National Archives opened in 1935 in Washington, DC. It holds the original copies of America’s Founding Documents in bronze-framed, bulletproof, moisture-controlled sealed display cases by day and in multi-ton bomb proof vaults at night. The documents are flanked by murals of Thomas Jefferson amidst the Continental Congress and James Madison at the Constitutional Convention.

The Rotunda in the Archives is the permanent home of our country’s Charters of Freedom: the Declaration of Independence, Constitution of the United States, and Bill of Rights.

The Archives vast holdings also include: the Magna Carta from 1297, The Emancipation Proclamation from 1863, collections of photography, and other culturally significant American artifacts.

The Archives serves as the original headquarters of the National Archives and Records Administration, established in 1934. Congress created NARA because government agencies were having difficulty maintaining their records. Fires, floods and other disasters caused irreparable damage. Records were stored in extreme climates, stuffed in bottom drawers, lost, misplaced, or outright stolen. The federal goverment needed a central location to organize and protect their valuable originals.

Besides safeguarding documents, NARA provides access to the public, i.e. for someone like me who wants to see my father’s naval ship records.

In 1994, due to the increasing demand for display space and storage, NARA opened an additional facility near the University of Maryland in College Park.